by Trevor Veale
“Well, you’d better carry on praying then. The people respect freedom of worship.”
He started rummaging in his pockets, and eased out a pack of cigarettes and a book of matches.
“Do you mind if I smoke?” he asked casually.
Letitia looked at him in amazement, her cheeks burning. “Yes, I do mind! This is a study, not a smoking lounge.”
He merely nodded, lifted a cigarette to his mouth and walked over to the couch where the archbishop was huddled like a guilty schoolboy with his brandy decanter.
“You’ve made liberal use of the brandy, I see,” he remarked. He lit the cigarette. “Helps you pray, does it?”
The archbishop mumbled something incoherent and clutched his empty glass in his shaking hands. Slamil leaned over him and blew a cloud of smoke near his face.
“What are you muttering about, you sly old bastard?” he murmured.
“Nothing, my son, nothing,” the archbishop replied. “I’m merely saying a prayer.”
“Oh really? Well, I’ve got news for you, father. There’s a new religion in town – it’s called reason. Soon your prayers will be redundant.”
He turned back to face Letitia and gave an exaggerated bow. “Do pardon my awful breach of etiquette, ma’am,” he said with elaborate pomp. “I’m here on behalf of the people of Melloria to invite you and your sons to join His Majesty the King in your new residence. When you’ve finished your prayers, perhaps you’d like to go down to the palace courtyard, while your bags are being packed, where your vehicle awaits you.”
He flicked his cigarette into the fireplace and turned to the archbishop again. “Good day, father, I’m sure you’ll be able to catch the bus home.” Then he sauntered toward the door. The potbellied man and his troops filed after him.
“I’ll give you five minutes,” he said before leaving.
The worst day of Letitia’s life continued unabated as she climbed down from the mud-colored truck and looked about her. She recognized the mental hospital immediately, having opened its Crisis Intervention Unit a few months before, and a more soulless, depressing place she couldn’t imagine. At least the grounds were pleasant, she thought, admiring the shrubs, rockery and hydrangea bushes. The only jarring aspect were the kilometers of chain-link fencing surrounding the complex.
The potbellied man with the droopy mustache was barking orders at the three Gorms as they scrambled out of the truck, along with two former palace servants who had volunteered to help the Gorms with their baggage. The latter were being treated less harshly.
“Each royal must carry as much luggage as possible – don’t leave it to the workers!” the man bawled. “The two workers may go to the canteen for refreshment when you’re all inside.”
They filed cautiously up the front steps, stumbling with their luggage, past black-uniformed troops who had emerged from the front of the truck and who formed a ragged guard, their assault rifles cocked and ready.
“Raasclaat! What do they think we’re gonna do – mash up the staff?” Anton whispered to Catheter.
Letitia was hit by waves of nausea when the sour institutional odors hit her nostrils like a pepper spray. It reminded her depressingly of the nursing home where her mother had lingered. A line of disoriented-looking people were waiting to greet them. Attendants in green cotton scrubs were fussing around, preparing the Gorms for their indefinite stay. One of the attendants motioned the royal party to a small cubicle office beside the dining hall. They were told to wait and Letitia was invited inside, to meet the superintendent.
He was seated at his desk when she walked in, and he came round to pump her hand. “It’s an honor to have you stay with us, ma’am,” he said.
“How long are they going to keep us here?” Letitia asked. She sat down with her handbag in her lap and gazed through the window at the high, vaulted ceiling of the dining hall. It caused the noise from the diners to turn into a bouncing roar.
The superintendent was a pale, nervous man in a brown suit and a striped tie. “I really have no idea,” he said. “I was only told about your stay a few hours ago. Also, I’m not allowed to offer you any privileges.”
“Nor do we ask any,” Letitia replied. “We merely require comfortable lodgings for ourselves and our servants, in the hope that we will soon be relocated to a friendly country.”
The superintendent smiled weakly. “Your staff will not be staying, I’m afraid, ma’am,” he said. “They are leaving as soon as your bags are unpacked.”
Letitia groaned inwardly. It was yet another humiliation being piled on them – they weren’t even allowed the help of their servants, something they had come to totally rely on . The superintendent was wittering on.
“ – in the meantime let me welcome you to your new home. A member of staff will show you where your rooms are. Tonight’s supper will be cod and boiled potatoes, and we’ll be serving tea at four-thirty in the dining hall.”
Letitia’s jaw sagged. She was gloomily envisaging the tea and soggy institutional biscuits she would have to get used to, as well as the carb-heavy meals of peas and potatoes crowding the small cubes of meat or limp slices of fish. She could almost smell these miserable feasts drifting along the corridors and seeping into their rooms at night, long after supper was over. She felt she would soon be close to utter despair. Get a grip! She told herself. You can’t go insane – that’s just what they want.
She left the superintendent’s office and went upstairs with her sons. They were led along a dingy white corridor. She was shocked at how bare the walls were – she was so used to tapestries and fine oils – and quickly began to understand how the residents of such a places could go permanently crazy.
The attendant escorting them opened a door and ushered her inside. In a narrow room, whose walls were grimy and stained, Godfrey sat on one of the two iron beds and stared out the barred window. Letitia stood openmouthed. He was still wearing his commander-in-chief’s uniform and smelled faintly of the cognac that clung to him like an aftershave. He turned his head around and gave a rough, very loud laugh.
“Well, this is what we’ve come to!”
Letitia sat on the other bed and put her handbag down. “Buck up, Godders – we mustn’t lose heart.”
“Lose heart? I’ve lost my bloody kingdom!” he roared.
Godfrey’s features were so crumpled and tired that a chill ran over her. He looked like he’d aged ten years in a few hours. She wanted to say something morale-boosting, to offset the calamity that had so swiftly befallen them, but the look on his face made her bite back her words.
‘”Did you get a visit from Paul Slamil?” he said.
She unclasped her purse and searched for a tissue. “Don’t mention that horrible man’s name!”
She wiped her face, opened her compact and applied a little make-up. “He was perfectly obnoxious and dreadfully rude to the archbishop. I hope he rots in hell.”
Godfrey who had been swaying drunkenly now pulled himself straight. “Rot in hell he will, but right now he’s in charge of our country and he says his lot are going to make sweeping changes”
“What kind of changes?” She was anxious to learn anything about the people who were lording it over them.
“He said they’re going to hold an election in December to decide who’s going to run the country, and he wants me to form a political party and run for leader.”
“He said what?” She could hardly believe her ears. If this were true, and not one of Godfrey’s drunken ramblings, this could be a way out of their awful situation.
“Said he wanted me to be the leader of a political party and run against him…”
Godfrey’s body was slumping again and his eyes were getting droopy.
“Those degenerate bastards…” he muttered. “As soon as the army launches its counterattack, I’ll…” His voice trailed off, his left arm hanging down.
“You should lie down,” she said lightly. “You need to sleep off that brandy hangover before we go
downstairs for our cod and potatoes.”
She helped him onto the bed where he lay down heavily and stretched out. He lay motionless, staring at the ceiling. “I’m not going to abandon our people to the mercy of those ruffians…” he said drowsily. “As long as there’s a breath left in my body, I…”
He began to doze. The next four hours, the longest she had ever known, were spent sitting on the bonehard bed while her husband slept. Under any other circumstances, she would have kicked off her shoes, loosened her tight-fitting waistband and flopped onto the blanket, rough as it was. But the shock of her sudden incarceration, coupled with the hope that they would somehow find a way out of this mess – a hope so strong in her she was almost afraid to breathe – kept her awake and upright. She kept turning the words Godfrey had just uttered over and over in her mind. Godfrey… leader of a political party… running in an election… against Slamil… It almost didn’t make sense, but in her mind’s eye she could see how with the right training and the right people helping him to reach out to the masses, Godfrey could make a formidable political figure. If only she could push him into the training and find the people!
Her eyes grew heavier and she started to doze off, then came to with a start. From the courtyard below erupted a babble of male voices, rising up to the window. Noisy footsteps clattered outside the door, fading down the corridor. She got up and went over to the window. Looking down, she saw two People’s Party troopers with assault rifles standing in the courtyard. They were clearly there to guard the royal inmates. The two guards conversed briefly, and one stayed while the other went off to patrol the perimeter of the building. Footsteps and the clink of metal outside the door told her other guards were in the corridor. She went back to bed. Now they were really in prison and the powers that be were making sure they stayed there.
A knock at the door announced the supper hour. If the mental hospital was as strict about protocol as the palace, she thought, they would be expected to join the other inmates downstairs, with no excuses accepted. She went to shake Godfrey. He opened his eyes and awoke in an utter bewilderment of confusion. He turned over and would have slept on another two hours if Letitia and the green-uniformed attendant, who came in from the corridor, hadn’t hauled him to his feet.
They went downstairs and sat with the others at a long formica table in the dining hall. Another attendant served supper trays from a wobbly aluminum cart. Two black-uniformed People’s Party guards sat on tubular metal chairs on the far side of the room, one of them reading a magazine, the other idly watching a TV screen that blared in a corner of the hall. Letitia peered at the TV, then stopped in her tracks. It was a news report showing the People’s Party apparently ransacking Calliper Palace. Trucks containing everything the Gorms had owned were stacked high in the palace courtyard, and smiling Party workers carried silverware and jeweled ornaments to add to the pile. The camera followed a reporter inside the palace, and Letitia was shocked to see the empty walls, their paintings wrapped and stacked, and the stripped bareness of the rooms. She saw female Party workers pulling clothes out of closets and searching through drawers. She guessed they were looking for the kind of stuff women hide away: money, letters, extra pieces of jewelry. Then with a jolt she realized the room being ransacked was her own bedchamber.
She gave Godfrey a sharp nudge. “Look, they’re robbing the palace!” she cried. The sight chilled her to the bone. Godfrey was still too drunk to take in the awfulness of it, and just nodded.
Letitia took her seat next to Godfrey and watched her two sons furiously eating. The sight of her beloved palace being stripped had shocked her beyond belief. She looked at Godfrey who swayed over his plate of gooey sludge. “You’d better eat something, dear,” she said. “People are watching us.”
He gave her a look of brutal derision. “How can you expect me to eat this slop?” he said loudly. He selected an individual lump of goo with his fork, bit into it and immediately spat it onto his plate.
“Get rid of this awful muck!” roared, his voice booming around the hall. “I’d rather eat a bag of horsefeed!”
The others at the table looked up or squirmed in their seats. Anton guffawed, then went back to wolfing down his food. At the other end of the room, one of the guards glanced over at the commotion, while the other continued to read his magazine. Letitia watched in dismay as Godfrey took his supper tray off the table and lurched to his feet. He tried to toss the tray back on the attendant’s cart, but his chair went over and gave the aluminum cart a bash. The attendant leaped to the other side of the cart to keep it from going over like Godfrey’s chair. There were giggles from some of the others at the table, and scattered mutterings passed around the news that King Godfrey was drunk.
Godfrey had everyone’s attention by now, including the guard who’d been reading a magazine. He set the magazine aside, a trace of annoyance on his face, and called out: “All right, that’s enough! You must remain seated until supper is finished. If anyone wishes to make a disturbance, we’ll find them a padded cell!”
“For God’s sake, sit down!” Letitia whispered to Godfrey who was enjoying being the center of attention. He turned a belligerent face to the two guards and spoke so loudly that his words racketed around the hall. ”You sit down if you want to!” he shouted. “If I can’t get any decent food tonight I might as well go back to bed!” He looked about between the rims of his drooping eyelids and gave a loud belch. The room became utterly silent as people waited for the guards to respond to his provocation. He looked as if his knees were about to give way. Several people leaned toward him to help prevent him from falling. An attendant offered his arm, but Godfrey shrugged him off and lumbered across the hall to the foot of the staircase.
He paused and pounded his fist on the banister, too inebriated to feel the soreness of his knuckles, and said in a snarly voice: “I hope you all sleep well tonight, even the bastards in black uniforms!”
The he turned and stumblingly climbed the stairs, while the diners in the hall lapsed back into a dilatory scraping of forks on plates. The two guards marched after him, and Letitia rose to follow them at a discrete distance, anxious to avoid an ugly scene. When she caught up with them, she explained briefly that her husband had had a long and exhausting day, and would soon be resting quietly in his room. The guard who’d been reading his magazine, which turned out to be Socialism Today continued to look annoyed, but the other guard nodded and asked politely if the king would like a nightcap. “Oh yes, a jug of iced water and two glasses would be lovely!” Letitia cried.
Back in the grimy little room she shared with Godfrey, Letitia poured water from a plastic jug into two plastic beakers, supplied by the friendly guard, and gave one to Godfrey. “I want you to get a good night’s sleep,” she said. “You’ll need all your strength for the days ahead.”
Godfrey sat on his bed and took a few sips, then his face turned an ominous shade of green. He motioned to Letitia to hand him the almost-empty jug. She watched in horror as he held it up to his mouth and spewed a phlegm-colored liquid. When he had finished, she took it to the window and tipped it through the bars. I hope that bad-tempered guard is standing right beneath us, was her last uncharitable thought before she went to bed.
Chapter 33
Sharon’s Big Day Out
Sharon sat idly flicking through the Bugle as she sipped a cup of lukewarm tea. She didn’t read the Bugle much these days, ever since the revolution had replaced the royal gossip column Trumpet Blast with the dull Social Round Up by someone called Bella Scott. But the announcement jumped out at her from an inside page. It promised a fun time at the Grand Opening of the Calliper People’s Palace, and – most enticing of all – it was free to anyone who was accompanied by a child or children. This mattered to Sharon who, since being laid off from her job at the palace, had had to rely on part-time work – principally housecleaning for the high-ups who lived outside of West City.
She had just spent an hour applying henna to her otherwise mo
usy hair, and her scalp tingled. The prospect of an outing with Craig, dragging him away from his computer games, plus a nosey round her opulent former workplace was suddenly appealing. She put on her checkered blue and white cotton dress, rounded up Craig from his bedroom and set off in high spirits.
She was feeling so good, in fact, that she decided they would take the subway, renamed the People’s Metro, and they swung through the palm-fronded station foyer. The station was teeming with people. It was a Saturday, and children and their parents were all heading toward the palace opening, which included a carnival set up in the palace gardens. The adults were looking forward to offloading their offspring to the care of childworkers, while they wandered childfree around the palace, admiring its ornamental splendor.
They got out at Constitution Square, renamed Revolution Square, and Sharon’s spirits dipped as she relived the days and nights she had tramped across it on her way to work. She and Craig were walking past benches crammed with cursing, cat-calling drunks and potheads, from whom she tried to shield her son. Bleary-eyed old men congregated among the trees and bushes, giving her pause for thought. It was never as run-down as this when I used to come here! What the hell happened? In the distance the old palace loomed, with its turrets and battlements, its rambling east and west wings, its maze of corridors and its museumlike rooms. She felt a bolt of nostalgia, mingled with relief. I don’t miss those bleeding long hours, she thought.
Just inside the main gates, where the gatekeeper’s hut stood, a white-haired woman in a blue uniform sold tickets to adults without children, while another woman with frizzy red hair and beads dangling from her inclined neck leaned over the children that were entrusted to her care. She touched tiny shoulders and cupped her hand under infant chins, and periodically led them in batches to the kiddies’ play area. Sharon stopped at the booth with Craig, while people jostled them on either side. “I’ve got a ten-year-old here,” she said in a low voice.